In our monthly Ratehacker round-up, Jeremy Cabral from finance comparison site finder.com.au highlights recent credit card offer changes, plus the best savings accounts and home loans.
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Credit Cards
If you’re looking to switch credit cards to get relief from interest charges on your outstanding balance then it’s worth doing a comparison right now. We’re seeing incredibly competitive balance transfer offers from the banks with a lot of 0 per cent balance transfer deals in market.
Feature: 0 per cent Balance Transfer
NAB Low Rate Credit Card: 0 per cent per annum for 15 months on balance transfers. The balance transfer war is really interesting to watch. The latest offer to blitz the market has been NAB’s 15 month balance transfer, which is currently the longest term 0 per cent balance transfer offer and reverts to a low purchase rate.
Feature: No annual fee with rewards
Coles No Annual Fee MasterCard: 1 flybuys point per $2 you spend. No annual fee credit cards are rare to find with an attached rewards program. This card has access to the flybuys program with a higher earn rate of 1.5 points per $1 spent in Coles Supermarkets. You can also benefit from free delivery every time you spend $100 or more and pay with your card.
Feature: No annual fee and 0 per cent balance transfer
ANZ Platinum Credit Card: $0 annual fee and 0 per cent balance transfer for 12 months. This card offers a $0 annual fee for the first year and if you spend $20,000 or more on eligible purchases each year thereafter the annual fee is waived. Includes complimentary overseas travel and medical insurance.
Home Loans
Feature: Variable Rate
Feature: Discounted Interest Rate
IMB Discount Split Home Loan: 5.43 per cent comparison rate. Receive a discounted rate for the first 12 months on this variable rate home loan. There are also no restrictions on making additional repayments if you have the variable loan option.
Feature: Fixed Rate Home Loan
UBank UHomeLoan Fixed Rate (1 year): 4.85 per cent comparison rate. Loan term of up to 30 years, and the ability to borrow up to 80 per cent of the property’s value up to a maximum of $1 million subject to approval.
Savings Accounts
Feature: Introductory variable rate
UBank USaver with Ultra: 4.62 per cent per annum. To be eligible for this product’s bonus rate you have to have a deposit of $10,000 in your USaver account or a settled UBank UHomeLoan. You must also deposit $2,000 a month from an external account. Standard variable rate is 3.56 per cent per annum.
Feature: Ongoing Bonus Rate
RAMS Saver: 4.11 per cent per annum. No minimum balance or fixed term. The standard variable rate is 2.81 per cent per annum and you receive a bonus rate of 1.30 per cent per annum if you deposit $200 each month and make no withdrawals.
Feature: Long Introductory Rate Period
Bankwest Telenet Saver: 4.30 per cent per annum for 6 months. Boost your savings with a competitive savings rate for the first six months of having this account. There’s no minimum balance required, nor are there any account keeping fees.
Transaction Accounts
Feature: No Foreign Transaction Fees
Citibank Plus Transaction Account: Fee free bank account, no foreign transaction fees. The Plus Transaction Account has the traveller in mind. Go overseas or shop with foreign online retailers and you won’t pay foreign transaction fees. You’ll also save money when withdrawing from foreign ATMs, as there are no international ATM withdrawal fees. To cap it off, this account allows free global funds transfers, and doesn’t charge account keeping fees.
Feature: Cashback Transaction Account
ING DIRECT Orange Everyday Account: 5 per cent cash back on contactless purchases. This account gives you back 5 per cent of any Australian payWave purchase under $100 for the first six months. You won’t pay any ATM fees if you withdraw more than $200 at any Australian ATM, and won’t pay any monthly account keeping fees
Feature: No ATM Fees
Bankwest Zero Transaction Account: no ATM charges at over 10,000 bank ATMs. Withdraw money free of charge at Westpac, Commonwealth, Bankwest, NAB and Westpac ATMs across Australia . This account comes with a debit MasterCard, and doesn’t charge monthly account fees if a minimum of $2,000 is deposited each month.
Personal Loans
Feature: Low interest secured loan
MyState Special Rate Secured Personal Loan: 9.92 per cent comparison rate. A secured personal loan with a relatively long maximum loan term of 10 years, no fees for paying out the loan early, and a redraw facility. Note that the redraw facility has a minimum of $500 per redraw.
Feature: Line of Credit
Citibank ReadyCredit: 5.9 per cent for 24 months. A flexible personal line of credit which can be used to pay off bills, holidays or credit cards and much more. You can also request a cheque to self if you want to use it as a personal loan. It also comes with a redraw facility and no annual fees or account-keeping fees.
Feature: New Car Loan
Heritage Bank Low Rate Secured Loan: 6.35 per cent comparison rate. A unique product which lets you use your term deposit as security for a loan. This means you get a lower rate of interest because the bank has security, and you can keep your investment funds. It also doesn’t charge a monthly fee.
Jeremy Cabral is the Publisher at finder.com.au which includes popular comparison sites CreditCardFinder.com.au and SavingsAccountFinder.com.au, helping over 4.8 million Australians compare financial products every year. Connect with Jeremy on Google+, Twitter and LinkedIn.
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